Church Pays Almost $1M For Former Boy Scout Camp

A local church purchased a former Boy Scout camp and ranger house in Bozrah for $960,300, documents filed with the town show.

The Revelation Church closed on the purchase of Camp Tadma on Tuesday. It had submitted the winning bid for the 340-acre property in an auction that ended Feb. 5.

Matt Grohocki, the church’s pastor, announced Feb. 10 in a video on the church’s Facebook page that it was the high bidder for the camp.

Grohocki did not outline the church’s plans for the property in the video. But Michael A. Fine, the owner of the auction house that conducted the bidding said the new owner planned “to keep the property very much the way it is.”

Attempts to reach the church Wednesday were unsuccessful.

On Tuesday, Grohocki’s wife, Heidi, tweeted: “Big day for #revchurchct. We closed on our new property. Lots of work ahead of us but we are excited. God is so good!”

A broadcast tower on the property was sold to another bidder for $385,000. On Wednesday, Fine declined to identify the bidder but said it was “a significant owner of broadcast tower properties.”

Conservationists saw a rare opportunity in the auction of Camp Tadma to add to the state’s stock of protected woodlands. The camp is contiguous to the state’s 350-acre Bear Hill Wildlife Management Area and 450 acres of farmland where the state owns development rights.

The state of Connecticut said it declined to bid because a short time frame for the auction did not allow for proper due diligence. The Connecticut office of the Trust for Public Land confirmed that it had submitted a bid but declined to reveal the amount.

On its Facebook page, Revelation Church identifies itself as an alternative to traditional churches with the tagline, “So people far from God experience radical transformation through Christ.” The church now meets and has its headquarters in a former storefront.

The Boy Scouts put the camp, opened in the late 1940s, up for auction amid declining attendance and mounting financial losses.